International Investment Conference - a genuine opportunity we must not miss!

It's now less than six week until the Celtic Manor Resort plays host to an international investment conference that was announced just over six weeks ago by Business Secretary Vince Cable and Welsh Government Minister for Economy, Science and Transport Edwina Hart. So we are halfway between the announcement of the conference and the actual conference taking place.

Apart from the initial excitement from local politicians following the announcement, have we heard anything since about how this event presents an opportunity for Newport, or about how Newport will be taking advantage? Of course we haven't. Or at least I haven't noticed.

This event presents an infinitely bigger opportunity for Newport and indeed Wales than the NATO Summit ever did. The world leaders and media who descended on Newport for the NATO Summit came to discuss global security issues, and they had a very tight schedule in which to conduct their business. Their remit was never to come here with a view to checking out Newport as a destination for business or tourism. And even if they wanted to, they certainly didn't have time.

Yet here we are with the world packing its overnight bag ready to come here and actually discuss international investment, and nobody in local government seems that bothered. I don't see endless tweets about 'opportunity' or 'putting Newport on the map' from the usual suspects as I did during NATO. Perhaps the investment conference is missing the celeb factor of Mr Obama, because frankly, that's all our local politicians cared about when NATO was in town.

Furthermore, the forthcoming conference will be focussing on what I and many others consider to be the REAL future for Newport and the surrounding area - ‘Embracing new technology for competitive advantage'.

With the demise of traditional industries such as steel and coal, Newport and South Wales lost the main source of income that had paid for the growth of our towns and cities throughout the 20th Century. We've tried to attract other industries to varying degrees of success, but what we really need is one overpowering industry that can take root here and which can come to represent us in the same way as steel and coal once did.

Technology offers that potential.

I'm not alone in thinking this and there is a growing local movement that, galvanised by the excellent reNewport report of February 2014, has taken upon itself to drive momentum for Newport as a centre of technology. For instance, launched by Sir Terry Matthews, the regular Digital Tuesday events held at Celtic Manor are gaining popularity as a forum for technology discussion and networking. I attended one recently and the optimism and enthusiasm of attendees and organisers was noticeable.

Many people in the Newport area will not be aware that Newport is excellently equipped to become a 'Silicon Valley' type centre of techology industries. We certainly have the infrastructure, the skills, and indeed a track record of hosting emerging and successful technology business. And in reNewport we have a vision laid out that can serve as a roadmap.

Newport itself was selected as one of the first ten Cities in the UK to become ‘super connected' as part of the UK Government’s £150million Urban Broadband Fund. Equipped with superfast and ultrafast broadband, funding is available for small and medium businesses, charities and social enterprises through Newport City Council.

We even have Europe's biggest data centre which is similar in size to Heathrow Terminal 5 and which is truly state-of-the-art.

This is all excellence stuff, and it just scratches the service of what we have to offer. This is what we need to be promoting to the outside world if we have any serious ambitions to attract inward investment and to grow Newport.

Technology should certainly be the focus of our ambition because technology industries are global, rich, growing rapidly, and offer an opportunity to deliver seriously rewarding careers and generate vast amounts of revenue for the area.

But this is where it hits a speed bump because our politicians seem totally disinterested and incapable of understanding the potential on offer. Instead we get a mindless infatuation with a new shopping centre that will deliver mostly part-time, zero-hour, minimum wage employment, and local councillors fighting over each other to have their photo taken next to President Obama.

Promotional activity should have started the moment the inward investment conference was announced. We should already be reaching out to delegates and global press well in advance to offer them invitations to tour and check out Newport as a technology business destination. The press in attendance will be business press and technology press, most of whom would certainly be interested in taking a look at what we have to offer; the tech businesses we already have here; our tech heritage and our infrastructure. This is in contrast to the military and political press that accompanied the NATO Summit who had no interest in such stuff.

As well as shouting about the benefits for technology businesses should they come here, we should also be shouting about the benefits for their employees. These benefits include cheaper house prices, so tech employees earning fat salaries will know they can afford beautiful houses in a beautiful part of the world.

I sincerely hope all this is in hand and we aren't just going to 'do a NATO' and stand on the sidelines with cap in hand when the international investment conference rolls into town. If it is all in hand, fine, but it might help to shut people like me up if we were kept informed of what the city is doing.

The trouble is, I don't believe it is in hand. Part of the problem will be that our councillors and politicians don't 'get' technology and consequently choose to put their faith, and our money, elsewhere on projects that won't deliver any lasting benefit.

They build shops when, as a city, we don't have money to spend. They build houses when there are not enough well paying jobs that people can afford mortgages. It's putting the cart before the horse time and time again.

We should be doing what we can to attract genuinely valuable business (not coffee chains and clothes shops) and developing an industrial base that generates inward revenue while creating good, well paid jobs. When people are in good jobs and earning good money THEN they will be able to afford houses and have money to spend in shops.

So let's see what happens with the forthcoming international investment conference. Will Newport take this opportunity by the scruff of the neck? It needs to get its skates on if it hasn't already started.